


Damage Control

by Setcheti



Series: Damage Control [1]
Category: Fantastic Four (Movieverse), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Consequences, Gen, Protective Steve, Team Dynamics, Tony Has Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-04
Updated: 2015-01-20
Packaged: 2018-02-24 03:36:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2566802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Setcheti/pseuds/Setcheti
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Tony shoots off his mouth to the press and sets off an avalanche of consequences someone really should have seen coming.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Snowball Rolls

**Author's Note:**

> A while back there was this thing going around that was purportedly a 'quote' of RDJ/Tony Stark (?) bashing the other Avengers as being useless compared to him. It was supposed to be funny, and it was, but it still kind of pissed me off - mostly the part about Clint, because the Loki thing was not his fault. And then I thought, hey, if _I'm_ pissed...how would Steve react if he saw it?

Steve Rogers was enjoying a cup of coffee at his favorite café that morning when the waitress approached him. She looked upset, and he immediately went on the alert. “Rose, is something…”

She shook her head, a little too hard. “Steve, have you seen the paper?” she almost whispered. When he indicated that he hadn’t, she bit her lip and handed him a folded copy. “I didn’t think you had, because you were just sitting here…oh Steve, I’m so sorry.”

Steve took the paper and unfolded it. The front page was a story about Tony Stark, which was nothing new – Tony was quite the little publicity hound, something Steve understood and didn’t hold against him. He scanned the story. A press conference, someone had asked Tony why he hadn’t called the other Avengers in to help him when a particularly destructive villain had attacked his house in Malibu, his response that he hadn’t needed them had provoked more questions, Tony had gotten pissed off…oh, there it was. Steve smiled at Rose, who was all but wringing her hands. “It’s okay, really. People have been trying to say I’m just a showman for…well, years. I’m used to it.” He looked back down, scanning the rest, expecting more of the same if not something even more insulting because Rose still looked upset…

The contents of the next paragraph, however, made his jaw set; the one after that narrowed his eyes. And the last one…he set the paper down. “Thank you,” he said, unclenching his jaw. “Really, thanks for bringing this to my attention – I usually don’t read the paper in the morning. I’ll take care of it, don’t worry – thanks to you, I can probably take care of most of it before any of my friends can be surprised by it.”

“Like your friend Bruce?” came from behind him. “I could see where surprising him might be a bad idea.”

Steve turned halfway around. Rose and the semi-retired regulars at the café knew who he was – the oldest guy, Stan, had actually met him when Steve had been doing the USO circuit all those years ago. He smiled, albeit a small smile, and shook his head. “No, actually I’m more worried about Clint – what happened wasn’t anything he could have stopped, but he still feels pretty bad about it and this,” he shook the paper, “is not going to help that situation at all.” He had a thought. “Stan, could you pass a message on to your boss for me when you go in? I don’t want to put him on the spot by just showing up over there, but if he’s willing and has time I’d really like to ask him some questions.”

“I can do that.” Steve scribbled his phone number on a napkin and passed it over, and the old man stuck it in his pocket. “I’ll tell him exactly what you just told me – he’ll appreciate that you’re giving him a choice.”

Steve shrugged. “I’m sure he and his family have plenty of their own stuff going on, I wouldn’t blame him a bit if he didn’t want to get involved with our stuff too.” He cleared his throat. “I…listen, I understand how tough it can be to talk to the media, believe me I do, and I understand how a press conference can get away from you if they start asking questions you weren’t ready for.” He shook the paper again.” Me and Natasha, not a big deal. Thor isn’t here, last I heard from his girlfriend, and I’m really glad of that right now. But Tony just outed something about Bruce that nobody was supposed to know, and he made fun of Clint for something the poor guy still has nightmares about – the same thing happened to a scientist who was there too, and that guy had a nervous breakdown and tried to kill himself.” He took a deep breath. “I just want you to understand why I’m mad, I guess. It’s not because he shot off his mouth, Tony is the king of shooting off his mouth and we all know it…but I can’t let this slide.”

“No, you can’t,” Stan agreed, nodding. “So he’s off the team?”

“Right now I’m wondering if he ever considered himself on it…but yeah, unless I get more information, extenuating circumstances or something…yeah, he’s off and not getting back on.” He stood up, digging money out of his pocket and putting it down to pay for his coffee. He smiled down at Rose and on impulse gave her a quick hug and kissed her forehead. “You tell that new boyfriend of yours that he’d better be good to you or else he’ll be dealing with me, okay? I’ll be back around once I have this mess cleaned up.”

She nodded, and he let her go with a pat, saluted Stan and the other regulars and then strode off down the street very much like a man with a lot of things on his mind, none of them good. Stan shook his head. “I think Tony Stark is going to be plenty sorry he shot off his mouth.” He stood up, patting the pocket where the napkin was secured. “Well boys, I’m heading over to the Baxter Building. I’ll see you all tomorrow.”

“But Stan, you don’t work today.”

The old man snorted. “Captain America just asked me to do him a favor, Jake. You damn well better believe I’m going in to work today.”

 

Steve might have smiled if he’d heard that, but he was already too far away and really, smiling was now the last thing on his mind. He pulled out his phone and dialed a number. It rang a few times, went to voicemail; having expected that, he immediately disconnected and dialed again. This time someone picked up on the second ring. “Bruce, it’s Steve,” he said. “I’m guessing you haven’t read the paper this morning…no, don’t! At least not if Tony’s in the building – I’m pissed at him, but I don’t want him dead. Yet, anyway. Yes, it’s that bad. Yeah, if he’s not there…” He leaned up against a wall, watching the part of Stark Tower that was visible to him, wondering if he was going to find out for sure that Bruce had been behind one of those windows in a few seconds. “Yeah, that’s it. No, not that part – you know I could care less, and the press has said worse things about me. Hell, for that matter, Tony has said worse things than that to my face.” Bruce snickered and said something about people who didn’t have a brain-to-mouth filter…and then he stopped, and for a long moment there was silence. Steve kept watching the windows. “Bruce? I probably shouldn’t even say this…but that’s not the worst part, keep reading.”

More silence. And then Bruce swore softly, and asked Jarvis if Tony had been misquoted. Jarvis responded that the quotes were nearly verbatim. Bruce said okay, and thanked the AI, then took a deep breath and blew it out before asking Steve where he was. “About a block away, watching the Tower,” Steve told him. “I can…are you sure? Oh, okay, I can understand that. In that case, walk out and around the corner past the little stone lion, I’ll be waiting. And I’ve got more phone calls to make, too, so take your time. Yeah, see you in a few.”

He disconnected again, then dialed a different number. This one picked up almost immediately, and he didn’t bother to introduce himself. “Have you seen today’s paper? Well, we have a problem, a big one,” he began without preamble. “Tony shot off his mouth to the press, and Jarvis confirmed that he wasn’t misquoted when Bruce asked him just now. Natasha, you’ve got to get to Clint. Yes…yes, I know he’s on a mission, it doesn’t matter – we’ve got to get to him and get him home ASAP, if he sees that story before…yeah, exactly.” He snorted. “He’ll compromise himself if he hears about it, so that should count. And if they catch him they can use that against him, he’d break like a teacup on the sidewalk. Yes. The one I was shown was the _Times_ , but Bruce looked it up online so who knows how far it’s already spread. Yes, like a disease – sometimes I like that about the future, but right now I’m wishing the Internet didn’t exist. I already told Bruce…” He snorted a laugh. “Yeah, me too, but sadly the Tower is still intact. He’s getting his stuff…yeah, but I can understand why. All it would take would be for Tony to come swaggering in and start poking at him the way he usually does and Bruce would go off like a fucking bomb, and he doesn’t _want_ to do that. Yeah, yeah…okay, you get Clint, get Sam to go with you if you can, I’ll take care of the rest. Call me once you’ve got Clint and I’ll arrange a place for all of us to meet…I already have some ideas, yes. It’ll be fine, I’ve got it – you just get to Clint and make sure he stays okay. Dasvidaniya.”

Steve called Sam next, just to give him a heads up and let him know that his help would be welcome but that if he’d rather not get involved that was okay. Sam looked up the news on his phone, called Tony multiple colorful names, and then told Steve he’d go with Natasha and come to the meeting with her and Clint. He also promised Steve that he’d do his best to keep Clint’s head screwed on straight and ordered him not to do anything stupid. “I could dance naked through Times Square right now and that still wouldn’t top Tony’s current level of stupid,” Steve told him. “You be careful, Sam.”

Sam snorted and hung up on him because Natasha was calling, and Bruce, who had appeared in front of him with a backpack slung over his shoulder, raised an eyebrow. “Naked in Times Square, really? Somebody’s feeling kinky today.”

Steve found a grin for him. “Well, it would give the news people something new to talk about.”

Bruce shook his head. “I’m not even sure that would do it, honestly – I got five pages of hits on my first and only search, only one of them from the _Times_.” He took a breath, blew it out, shifted the backpack. “So, what do we do now?”

“I’ve got Natasha and Sam going after Clint,” Steve told him. “The two of you were my biggest priority because this could have threatened your safety. Now I just need to find out where Thor’s at and let Jane know what’s going on, then you and I are going to…well, you’ll see.” He scrolled through the address book on his phone and found the number for Thor’s girlfriend Jane, which he dialed. It connected almost immediately and he held the phone away from his ear when a loudly excited squeal of greeting came blasting out of the receiver. “Hi to you too, Darcy,” he said. “Is Jane…okay, I thought that was why you were answering her phone. Do me a favor, get on the Internet and Google Tony Stark and Avengers…yes, really. No, not like that, but this is an emergency…” Another squeal, this one angry, and he pulled the phone back again. “Yeah, that’s it. Darcy, tell me Thor isn’t on…good, that’s really, really good. It isn’t? What…shit. Okay, yeah, now I’m really glad he’s not here. Now as soon as you can, let Jane know what’s going on…no! No, don’t do that, please. We need to keep this under the radar for the time being Darcy…read the rest of it, you’ll see…yes, that. I’m working on it, it’s going to get taken care of, but I’m gonna need some time to get everything the way I need it to be – we don’t want what happened to the professor to happen to Clint. Yes…yes, I will let you know, and then you can raise all the online hell you want, I promise. Just tell Jane, show Jane, and keep Jane from doing something deadly to him with the Asgardian technology I _know_ she has because that will only make things worse. Yes…yes! Exactly! I’m glad you get the scope of the problem. Yes, you too. Thanks Darcy, I’ll be in touch.”

He breathed out a sigh of relief once she disconnected, and not just because she was loud. “Thank God, Thor’s not on Earth right now – if he was, Tony would probably be dead already.” Both of Bruce’s eyebrows went up, and Steve slumped against the wall, shaking his head. “Thor’s brother died, in his arms no less, helping Thor defend Asgard. Their mother is dead too. Jane was there, she told Darcy all about it.”

“Shit.” Bruce ran a hand through his already disordered curls. “Okay, yeah, so that’s one disaster postponed. What now?”

Steve straightened again. “Now we make some plans while we wait for people to call me back. I have to send another message to someone, but we’ll have to do that one from my apartment and then we’ll go…well, I have a place in mind, but I don’t want to say it out loud. You’ll have to trust me.”

In reply, Bruce gave him a one-armed hug. “As long as we’re not jogging back to Brooklyn, I’m good,” he said. “Let’s get going, though, because Jarvis is a tattletale of epic proportions.”

“Even Jarvis can’t find us where I’m taking us,” Steve assured him. “But yeah, let’s get out of here before I decide Stark Tower has too many unbroken windows.”

 

Steve’s apartment, one bus ride later, was a revelation to Bruce – and not only because he’d just realized that none of them had ever seen it before. It looked like it had been completely furnished with antiques…and like it was now being lived in by someone who didn’t care for antiques all that much. Sketches were tacked and taped up on the vintage wallpapered walls, old fixtures had been moved aside to make room for cheap newer ones, and most of the furniture had been covered with throws or quilts. The scientist looked around, nodding. “I’m guessing they tried to furnish the place in early forties history-major chic?”

Steve snorted. “That’s pretty much what I thought when I saw it, yeah. The apartment Bucky and I had didn’t look anything like this, believe me – and neither did the one I grew up in. My mother preferred Art Deco.”

“Your mother had good taste,” Bruce approved. “No wonder you’re an artist.” He made a show of looking around the apartment again. “I guess whoever did this could also have been a frustrated museum curator, or maybe just a closet hipster…”

“Possibly.” Steve sat down at the wooden desk and unlocked a drawer, pulling out a laptop. He got to work as soon as it was booted, typing and entering then typing again for what seemed like a long time, and then he shut the laptop down and stowed it in a backpack that had been in the drawer with it. “Okay, message sent,” he said. “We can get out of here now, I’ll show you my favorite Starbucks.”

That raised Bruce’s eyebrows – Steve had, on occasion, been pretty vocal about his opinion of Starbucks - but he realized that was a warning that someone could be listening and nodded. “They have substandard tea, but I can drink it,” he agreed, picking up his bag again and looking around one more time. “There’s a place online that sells some nice Art Deco posters for not much money, remind me to show it to you. Because that Pollock reproduction over there really needs to go.”

“I can think of several places I’d like to put it,” Steve snorted, and then they were out the door again. If they pretty much vanished on the way to Starbucks, nobody noticed it at the time.

About half an hour later, however, the people who considered it their job to ‘monitor’ Captain America noticed that his cell phone was registering as out of signal range, and then a quick check of his last known whereabouts and activities sent the head of their group straight to Director Fury with a handful of printouts. “Director, we have a problem!” the man shrilled, waving the papers. “Captain America has disappeared, his phone is showing as off the grid, and his search history indicates that something is the matter with him. He may have finally snapped!”

He sounded somewhere between upset and excited, which made Fury roll his eyes. “You’re supposed to be monitoring his safety, not spying on him,” he reprimanded, snatching the papers. “Why in the world are you bugging his personal computer? I didn’t authorize that and you know it.” He scanned the first paper, which listed the man in question’s morning activities, including him going out for coffee, meeting up with Banner, going back to his apartment and then heading out to someplace Fury would bet money wasn’t Starbucks. The next few pages documented his recent Internet activity, a long list of Google searches one right after the other. Fury snorted and scanned down the list, seeing the keywords which had set the man’s watchers off and also seeing something else. He grabbed a highlighter from a nearby desk and made some marks on the paper, then thrust it back at the panting man. “He knows you’re watching him,” he said. “And he apparently knew exactly what words would send you running straight to me.”

Highlighted on the list was a message:

> Director Fury, Why would I need to look up how to kill myself?  
> Tell your guys I appreciate their concern, but they need to get a new hobby.   
> Found out about the incident, pulling in everyone who’s here to regroup.   
> Damage control.   
> Don’t track us, we shouldn’t need backup, will call if we do for some reason.   
> IM is off the team unless someone proves to me he shouldn’t be.   
> Search NYT Stark Avengers for more info.   
> We’ll be in touch later.

The little man huffed, shaking his head. “He must be having paranoid delusions. We need to track him down…”

“We need to do nothing of the sort – yet, anyway.” Fury commandeered the nearest computer and searched; just the list of hits he got made him scowl. He opened the link for the _New York Times_ article, scanned it…and then straightened, grabbed the little man and shoved him down into the chair in front of the monitor. “So you’re spying on him while he has coffee, visits friends and surfs the ‘Net…but you didn’t notice _this_?! Remind me again what the fuck I’m paying you for?”

The man read the first part of the article and paled. “I…we don’t monitor the news, someone else does that.”

“You just became someone else,” Fury snarled at him. “Go back to your hole and start following this story and everything connected to it. I want hourly reports, _brief_ ones, about where it’s going, what the tone of public opinion is about it, and if anyone proposes or takes any sort of action with regards to it.” He loomed over the now cringing man. “Oh, and I’m sending someone with you to shut down the supersoldier voyeurism part of your project, and if they find anything I wouldn’t like I’ll see to it that you become a file clerk in the Auxiliary Archive understood?” The man nodded, and Fury straightened. “You,” he barked, pointing at a technician, who immediately stood up. “You aren’t gay for Captain America, right?”

Hill winced when the technician’s mouth fell open. “Sir, you’re not allowed to ask questions like that.”

He raised an eyebrow at her. “I am if I’m sending him on a search-and-destroy mission for footage of Captain Rogers doing what comes naturally to a young man his age when he’s alone in his apartment.”

She turned red, but nodded. “Agent Marcus, you aren’t gay for Captain America, are you?” Marcus shook his head and held up his left hand to display his wedding band. She raised an eyebrow, and he shook his head again even harder. “Okay, you go with him, document anything…improper that you find and we’ll send someone from IT down to wipe it out of the system and cut off Agent Jameson’s access.”

Fury waited until the two men were gone and then huffed out a frustrated breath. “Stay on top of this,” he told Hill. “But stay out of Captain Rogers’ way, and keep everyone else out of his way too. If he’s doing what I think he’s doing, we’re about to get a unified _independent_ team of Avengers out of this fiasco…and we won’t have to deal with Stark and his ego again unless something comes up that directly involves him. I’ll find a way to get even with him for the Samuel L. motherfucking Jackson crack later – I _know_ he knows Sam is my cousin.”

“I don’t think he’s the only one,” Hill said. She’d been scanning the sheets of printed searches, and she held one out to him, pointing:

> P.S. - I prefer Inglorious Basterds, but the resemblance is pretty striking. Is he your cousin or something?

Fury had to smile. “I’ll ask Sam to pass that along the next time he sees Tarantino.”

 

Some six blocks away in the penthouse of the Baxter Building, the Fantastic Four were having a meeting. “This has to be a family decision,” Reed Richards, aka Mr. Fantastic, was saying, waving the napkin with the phone number on it that his head of building security had dropped off half an hour earlier along with a very pointed message from Captain America. “Because once we’re involved, we can’t be uninvolved.”

“And the Army could get interested in the Hulk again any time now because of what that loudmouthed bastard told the press,” his brother-in-law Johnny Storm put in. “Not to mention, the Hulk does ten times as much damage as we do.”

“I think you’re missin’ the point,” Ben rumbled, shaking his head. “He didn’t say he wanted our help, Reed, he said he wanted to ask you some questions. You heard Stan, the kid saw that news story and went straight into damage-control mode to protect his team. I’d bet you ten bucks that’s what he wants to ask you about – he wants to know how we get around the shit-storm that comes up every time the Avengers have to stop a threat.”

“I hadn’t thought of that, but now that I am you’re probably right,” Reed agreed slowly. “Still, though, the minute Captain Rogers walks into our building we’re involved.”

“Which is why he told Stan to tell you he’d understand if you didn’t want to talk to him,” his wife, Sue Storm-Richards pointed out. “But although I agree with Ben, I think there is something else he wants from us: He wants to know if we’re willing to be allies or not. And he’ll want to let us know that if we need any help his team will come out.”

“Ground support,” Johnny snorted.

“Ground support saves your ass, flyboy,” Ben snapped at him. “And the asses of all the civilians you can’t see from the air. You know, like your sister and I do?”

Johnny winced. “I didn’t mean it like that. Or, well, I did, but not like Stark did, even though he was kind of right. Compared to him when he’s got his suit on, the rest of them don’t add up to all that much and the Hulk is a liability.”

“Stark is actually a bigger liability than the Hulk,” Reed contradicted quietly. “The Hulk only causes damage when he is attacked. But the Iron Man suit is basically a personal fighter jet, Johnny – it is equipped with both lasers and missiles, and its propulsion system is a mini rocket-booster.”

“And Stark flies around in it for fun,” Ben tacked on. “He’s also constantly addin’ stuff to it, so nobody but him knows what it can actually do. And he’s not anywhere near as careful as you are, he relies on his company to handle any complaints or damage claims. Which would be the other other question Rogers wants to ask you, Reed,” he said. “He wants to know how we do it without unlimited cash and a multinational corporation to clean up our messes.”

“Yes, that would be the thing he’d want to know most, wouldn’t it?” Reed nodded slowly. “For all that he seems to have adapted so well to living in a new era, he is still a man out of time and he knows he needs guidance. I can’t blame him for not going to SHIELD, after the last fiasco they had. So what he actually wants most is my _advice_.” He raised a silvering eyebrow at the rest of his family. “Well?”

“I think we should,” Sue told him. “I think that, if we don’t, we’re no better than Tony Stark.” That got her some startled looks. “Don’t you see? He turned on the people who thought he was part of their team…because he decided they weren’t ‘super’ enough to be his allies.”

Johnny made a face. “Yeah, when you put it like that…yeah, you’re right. Even if he was just shooting off his mouth at the press…”

“All that crap had to be in his head to begin with for him to shoot it out his mouth in the first place,” Ben finished for him. “So he just told the whole world that he thinks he’s better than the rest of them, better than anyone who doesn’t have a super-suit and a ton of money and power. That ain’t gonna go over too well with a lot of people.” He nodded at Reed. “Let’s do it, let’s help the kid get started right.”

“We’re all agreed, then.” Reed reached across the room for his cell phone and dialed the number. He got voicemail and left his personal number with a message that he’d be happy to answer any questions he could. He looked a little bit disappointed, though. “I’d have thought he’d have been…”

“Waiting by the phone for you to call?” His wife got up and gave him a hug. “He wasn’t sure if you would or not, remember? And besides, Stark Industries has that all-powerful computer running things for them, I bet he’s taken his team and gone to ground somewhere where the computer won’t be able to find them.”

“You think Captain America has a _secret hideout_?” Johnny exclaimed, and pouted when his sister nodded. “Dammit, I want one of those.”

 

Pepper Potts would have agreed with him completely, although for a different reason: All Pepper wanted to do right at that moment was hide somewhere until the whole giant PR mess Tony’s idiocy had kicked off had blown over. If it ever blew over, she was starting to have her doubts. She’d been on damage-control duty from the moment someone had notified her about what was going on – which was about the same time that Bruce Banner had given his access card to the front desk on his way out of the Tower that morning, saying he wouldn’t be back – but by that point the story from the botched press conference had snowballed into something even she couldn’t put any kind of a positive spin on. Stark Industries’ phones had been ringing off the hook, everyone’s email was overflowing, and their corporate Twitter and Facebook feeds were jammed with commentary and messages that ran the gamut from confused to condemning – and a whole disturbing subset that expressed unconditional approval. She’d tried to call Rhodey and had instead been routed to one of his superiors, who had told her that the Air Force was still ‘deciding what to do’ about the situation and not to call again. Then she’d had an idea that maybe she could get Captain Rogers to give an appropriate statement to the press to calm everyone down…which had led to the problem of Jarvis not being able find him or any of the other Avengers anywhere in the city. Trying to figure out where they’d all gone and why was currently taking her mind off of all the other unpleasant things she could be doing. “Alright, we’ll go over it again, maybe I missed something important,” she mused, pacing back and forth in front of the screen with the city map pulled up on it. “Bruce took all of his personal effects with him when he left, so he obviously doesn’t mean to come back anytime soon. Captain Rogers never came in…although now that I think about it, I don’t think Tony has ever invited him over since the building was repaired, so he may not have felt comfortable just walking in and asking for Bruce.”

“Or he may not have wished to be the physically-present messenger if Dr. Banner took the news he had to impart badly,” Jarvis intoned. “I did momentarily fear for my structural integrity.”

“I don’t blame you a bit,” Pepper reassured him. She’d seen the security footage; Banner had looked right into the camera so they could _see_ his eyes change color, most likely as a warning to stay away from him for a while. “But I think he left because he didn’t want to hurt you, Jarvis – or me, or maybe not even Tony.” She frowned. “ _I_ want to hurt Tony right now, though.”

“When he sees that he has been locked out of your shared suite, Ms. Potts, I believe that will cause him a great deal of personal pain.”

She waved a dismissive hand. “That’s not why I did it, Jarvis. I just didn’t want him trying to get around me being mad at him by initiating sex in the middle of the night. And you can tell him I said that if he brings it up.” She went back to the map, tracing the red line that had been the route Rogers and Banner had taken away from the Tower with one perfectly manicured fingernail. “They took the bus, went to Steve’s apartment in Brooklyn, then left and went down into the subway and didn’t come back out anywhere that you can see. So either they took the train out of the city entirely…or they’re still down there, sitting around having coffee or something. And you said Natasha left the city in a hurry and took someone else with her…” She tapped the map again, this time over the airport. “They’re going to get Agent Barton, he must be out of town. Why didn’t they all rendezvous at SHIELD, though? Because when she brings Barton back…”

And then Pepper stopped, staring at the map – at the dead-ended red line. “Jarvis,” she said. “Delete this, purge it, and don’t tell Tony I had you look it up. And don’t let him look it up, either.” The red line disappeared and so did the map, leaving behind a lovely ‘view’ of the city that mimicked the view from some of the Tower’s windows. She shook her head at the closely packed buildings and busy streets. “All this time, he must have had contingency plans, just in case something bad happened,” she said, more to herself than to Jarvis. “I bet none of them knew about it until today – and I bet that until this morning, Tony was included. Not any more, though. He told the world what their weaknesses were and then said he didn’t need them…I don’t expect a man like Captain Rogers would have taken that too well.”

“The communications I was able to intercept from SHIELD would support that, Ms. Potts,” Jarvis told her. “Director Fury has issued a ‘hands-off’ order for the Avengers, his people are not to interfere with them unless Captain Rogers requests assistance. And he has issued a further order that Sir is no longer SHIELD’s concern unless he makes himself SHIELD’s concern.” A pause. “He copied me on that message.”

Pepper felt the bottom drop out of her stomach. The situation wasn’t a snowball anymore; now, it was an avalanche. And nothing could stop an avalanche.


	2. Gathering Speed

Far under the busy streets of Brooklyn, Steve was showing Bruce around the Avengers’ new and very secret hideout, a long-abandoned but remarkably well-preserved subway station which had been protected from the usual junkies and graffiti artists by virtue of it not being accessible unless you just happened to know where the door was and what that door looked like. “Bucky and I found this place when we were kids,” Steve explained. “Almost everybody had forgotten about it, even back then – and I checked, nobody but nobody remembers it now except for me and…well, and him.” Bruce patted his shoulder, and Steve sighed. “I know, I just…”

“There’s nothing wrong with hoping,” Bruce reassured him. “Especially not since he’s given you every reason to have hope for him, right? And who knows, the current situation may actually be a positive thing where he’s concerned – we’re away from SHIELD now, he might be in contact more because of that.”

“Yeah, or he might decide Tony needs to die and I’ll have to stop him,” Steve pointed out. “We’ll cross that bridge if we come to it, though. Anyway, that room over there,” he gestured to a door which had a sign that said _Private_ on it, “was our room, we’d fixed it up and everything. So that one’s off limits, because if he remembers and comes down here, that’s where he’ll go. But any other room in the place is yours, just pick the one you want. And we’ll need to set one of the bigger ones aside to be your lab, too; I think the old engineering room on the other end of the main lobby might be good for that, but you’d know better than I would.” He waved his hand, this time indicating the whole of the vast space with its cathedral-arched ceilings and intricately tiled walls. “So what do you think?”

“I think this place is amazing, and not just because of the architecture,” Bruce replied without hesitation. “Good constant temperature and not electronically traceable since we’re so far underground, plenty of space for all of us, concealed entrance, and obviously some kind of pre-existing connection to the power grid because the lights are still working…or did you just patch us back in yourself?” Steve blushed, and the scientist grinned at him. “Shame on you, a national icon stealing from Con-Ed.”

“Right now it’s only for a few lightbulbs,” the other man defended himself. “We’ll find a way to make it a legit connection once we start pulling more power. I’ll ask Fury to help us straighten that out if I have to…unless you just happen to know how to make a generator that will get us around needing to be patched in at all?”

This time Bruce was the one who blushed. “I did not steal it from him, he gave it to me to use if I ever went back to India,” he said, shifting the backpack on his shoulder. “Of course I brought it with me. Now the plans for duplicating it that I have on one of my flash drives might be a grayer area…but hell, it’s not like we’re planning to start selling them or something. Where…”

Steve pointed in the other direction. “Power room is over there. It’s pretty big, I think they were making sure they had facilities to grow with if they needed to, so it should be more than adequate for anything we need.” He led Bruce to that room, letting him tut over the non-expertly patched-up wiring. “Can you work with what’s here, or do we need things?”

“Both,” was the answer. “That does bring up the ten-million dollar question, though: What are we doing for money? I figure they’re giving you a pension, but…” He stopped, looking puzzled, when Steve shook his head. “You’re not getting a pension?”

“I was, or at least I thought I was, but I’m not anymore and what I actually was getting turned out not to be a pension at all. When everything went down at SHIELD last year, I found out that the Army didn’t have anything to do with it or me – they aren’t even sure they believe I’m who I say I am at this point, and I don’t think I trust them enough to let them try to verify it.” He shrugged. “It doesn’t really matter anyway, though. I have a job.”

Bruce raised an eyebrow. “Tell me you haven’t been answering those ads for artists’ models on Craigslist, Steve.”

Steve contrived to look offended. “There is nothing dirty about that, life-drawing is the only real way to capture the nuances of the human form…” Bruce’s other eyebrow went up, and the supersoldier chuckled, shaking his head. “I did consider it, but I was afraid someone would find out and I’d get into trouble. So I got a job as a firefighter instead. They were glad to get me, and the chief knows who I am so if something big goes down he knows I’ll have to go do my non-paying job first. So I’m good on that score. Clint and Natasha are still getting paid by SHIELD for services rendered, Sam has a real pension and a part-time gig as a counselor, and Thor…well, when he’s on Earth I know he pays half the rent on Jane’s apartment and buys his share of the groceries, so I’m guessing he either already has money or he has a way to earn it when he’s here.”

“Which just leaves me,” Bruce pointed out. “The professional homeless guy.”

“The genius biophysicist who got dealt a really shitty hand by the Army and SHIELD,” Steve corrected. “And I already thought of that. I sent a message to Reed Richards this morning before I came to get you, asking if he’d be willing to answer some questions for me. If he says yes, how we can get you back to doing science for a living is going to be one of them.”

Bruce just stared at him for a long moment, and then he slowly shook his head. “Don’t ever let anyone tell you the serum is the only reason you’re Captain America, Steve.” He slapped his friend on the arm. “Come on, if I can find a well-enough connected part of the structure, I might be able to wire things up so we’ll be able to use our phones. We’ve got a lot of work to do down here, we need to be able to check our messages without making the long trip upstairs.”

Steve beamed at him. “I was really hoping you’d say that.”

 

A few hours’ worth of updates had come and gone, and Nick Fury was becoming increasingly annoyed by the whole situation. The Internet was exploding with rumors and impotent outrage, but none of it was accomplishing anything except for getting all of the devil’s-advocate Stark-apologists screamed off the forums and feeding meaningless trickles of conjecture to desperate researchers at the 24-hour news outlets. No one had heard from Stark, and Stark Industries hadn’t issued any statements on his behalf. Someone from the Air Force had contacted Fury requesting a way to get in touch with Captain Rogers, and Fury had put them on to Sam Wilson – who was currently off with Natasha Romanov getting Barton, something Fury had no problem with in light of the circumstances – because who better to help sort out the issue of War Machine possibly working with Captain America than the Falcon? Other than that, though, the Air Force wasn’t saying anything to anyone either. And Fury’s IT people had confirmed that Stark’s A.I. had ‘checked his email’, so to speak, so that message had been received. And it had most likely been passed on to the CEO of Stark Industries as well since no further intrusions had been noted and the A.I had reportedly ‘pulled out’ of several of their systems about half an hour later, leaving behind a single message in Fury’s Inbox: “If you see Dr. Banner, please relay to him that Ms. Potts says she would like him to know she is very sorry for what happened, and she wishes him well.”

There were some days when Fury felt incredibly sorry for Pepper Potts; today was definitely one of them.

Hill appeared in front of his desk with Agent Marcus…and they were both smiling, which made Fury’s eyebrow go up. “Oh, this must be good. What did you find?”

“Not what you expected, at least, not quite,” Marcus told him. “You said it yourself: He knew they were watching him. But the way he got in touch with you earlier today aside, I wouldn’t have thought…well, he was apparently taking advantage of the situation in more ways than one.”

“He was trolling them,” Hill clarified. “My guess is he was bored and annoyed and wanted to see how far he could push it before they caught on. Agent Marcus called me down when he realized just how far it had actually gone.”

“Which was really amazingly far,” Marcus chimed in, handing over a small auxiliary drive. “I removed it all from the system and IT is purging the backups now…but sir, you have to see this.”

Fury took the drive, plugging it in. “Am I going to be as amused as you two obviously are?”

“Yes,” Hill confirmed. “And I already told Jameson and his team to pack their bags, although I’m thinking we may not want them in the Archive – that might be too much of a challenge for them, considering.”

Fury absorbed that, scowling over the implications as he opened the video file Hill indicated on the drive’s file list. He saw the interior of Rogers’ apartment, noting absently that his so-called ‘experts’ who had set the place up had apparently also been fuck-ups, and then Rogers walked into the frame.

Completely naked, although objects in the foreground and things he picked up or handled kept getting in the way of the full view as he moved around the room. The scene looked familiar, every movement smooth but deliberate, almost choreographed…and then Fury got it and laughed out loud. “He’s doing that scene from Austin Powers!”

“One of the best recreations I’ve ever seen, sir,” Marcus confirmed. “Especially considering he had to set it all up in full view of the camera without making anyone suspicious. They were suspicious enough to save the footage, but Agent Jameson’s notes indicate that they were concerned the captain’s ‘sensibilities’ might be breaking down and his behavior showed ‘signs of instability’.”

“Hardly.” Fury shook his head, not able to get rid of the smile. “You’re right, Hill, we don’t want these morons at the Archive – Dr. Thompson would never forgive me. Put them out at that one defunct pumping station we have in Iceland, they can monitor nothing going on and report it back to someone who isn’t me.”

“Can I tell them they need to keep an eye out for an old reindeer herder who seems to be running some kind of clandestine manufacturing operation?”

“Please do – and mention the possibility that some kind of biotech research using local wildlife may be involved while you’re at it. The day they catch on is the day I’ll consider letting them work somewhere else.” He nodded at the screen. “Any more of these I need to watch?”

“I’d say all of them, sir,” Hill told him. “This is the best one, but they’re all funny and I’d suggest you save them for a bad day. I…well, these are the only existing copies anywhere, consider it my apology for doubting you about Captain Rogers. He’s a lot more on the ball than I expected, even after the Chitauri invasion. And honestly, if that’s just him being annoyed with someone, I’d hate to see what he’d do to someone he really doesn’t like.”

“We all may be getting a front-row seat to that one soon,” Fury said. “Marcus, I’m putting you in charge of monitoring the Avengers for the time being, starting with the current mess. Pull in some people to help you, I think a team of four will be sufficient, and get IT to help you reclaim our surveillance equipment from the captain’s apartment. I’ll tender my apologies to him for that the next time I talk to him – it was supposed to be one camera on his door, just for security purposes.”

“Yes sir, Director,” Marcus replied. “Do you want me to monitor the Fantastic Four as well?” Fury’s eye widened. “Phone records show they contacted him about three hours ago, but I suspect he contacted them first – most likely he gave a message to their doorman, who is a regular at the same café the captain has coffee at. We do have some general surveillance in the area of the Baxter Building just in case something big happens, and I was able to confirm that the doorman went from the café to the Baxter Building this morning and stayed for less than half an hour – and it was his day off.”

“Good work.” Fury was pleased, and it showed. “You don’t need to monitor them directly, but we’ll keep the existing surveillance and keep tabs on their interactions with the Avengers if at all possible. And keep a close eye on the doorman, make sure nobody but nobody targets him for any reason – that’s all we need is for some idiot to get a funny idea and trigger the wrath of every superhero in Manhattan.”

Marcus nodded. “Anything else you’d like me to keep a particular eye out for?”

“I’m sure if you see something I need to know about, you’ll know it,” Fury told him. “Get back to it, keep me posted.” The agent left, and Fury returned his attention to Hill. “Anything else?”

“There still hasn’t been any statement from Stark, but I found out his flight home was delayed by weather conditions and he’s mostly out of contact at the present time. He probably won’t be back in the city for another day or two.”

Fury nodded. “That’s probably a good thing – for us and for the Avengers, not for him. Speaking of which, we need to prepare a statement of our own and release it to the press. I’ve been jotting down some ideas, we’ll need to get our PR people in here to polish things up so we don’t accidentally put our foot in anything, but I wanted to make sure all of the important points were addressed.” He pushed over a notepad. “Here, tell me if you can think of anything else we should include…”

 

High up on a crumbling stone building in a wilder part of Peru, Clint Barton was startled when a familiar voice hissed at him from the shadows. “Barton.”

“That’s a good way to find out if you can catch arrows,” he hissed back, and then his eyes widened when he saw a winged shape glide in and land next to her. “Is that Falcon? How many different FUBAR achievements did this mission just unlock?”

“The mission is cancelled,” his partner informed him. “It’s too dangerous for you to be here right now, I was sent to get you and bring you out.”

Clint was already gathering his things, but he was frowning. “Too dangerous? Fury said it was too dangerous?”

“No, your team leader did,” Sam told him. He held out his hand. “Sam Wilson, pleasure to finally meet you, Barton.”

Clint accepted the offered hand, still puzzled. “Likewise – I’ve heard a lot about you from Natasha. Sorry I wasn’t there to help when all the shit went down before…”

“Don’t apologize – from what I hear, you were more than entitled to that downtime,” Sam cut him off. “This is all you’ve got?”

“Traveled light this time,” Clint confirmed. “If I just had twelve more hours, though, I was gonna move in on this bastard tonight…”

“And if he’d caught you, things would have been far worse than you can imagine,” Natasha interrupted. “We have transport waiting, we’ll explain on the way to the airport.” And then, on impulse, she hugged him. “I am so glad we got to you in time.”

Clint returned the hug, even more puzzled and a lot more worried. “Okay, now I’m scared,” he said. “What the hell has been going on?”

“Stupid shit,” Sam told him. “Because that’s what comes out of stupid people.”

“Enough conversation,” Natasha said. “We’ll miss our flight – and I have us in first class.”

“Consider me shut up and moving,” Clint told her, and did just that. They’d tell him what was going on eventually. He knew whatever it was must be really important, though, because anything less wouldn’t rate a first-class plane ticket.

 

Later that evening, a very nervous man had a word with the doorman on duty at the Baxter Building and was waved through to the old-fashioned elevator at the end of the polished marble lobby. It was a beautiful old building, lovingly maintained by its owner in spite of all the damage it had incurred over the years, and he appreciated that the original aesthetic had been preserved. Too many people nowadays just didn’t bother, he hated that.

The building wasn’t all that tall, so reaching the penthouse level didn’t take too long. He composed himself before the doors opened, wanting to look and sound as professional as possible, and stepped out radiating a confidence he didn’t actually feel to greet the distinguished-looking man who was waiting for him. “Dr. Richards.”

The leader of the Fantastic Four found a smile for him. “Mr. Birnbaum, thank you for coming on such short notice. I know you’re probably quite busy right now.”

“We are, but I knew you wouldn’t call if it wasn’t important,” the younger man said, shaking the offered hand. “What’s going on?”

“Well, there have been some new developments, and the Fantastic Four has a statement to give regarding the public relations fiasco Mr. Stark kicked off,” Reed explained, leading him into the living room area of the penthouse where the rest of the family and another man were sitting. “You already know Sue, Johnny and Ben, but I don’t believe you’ve met Captain Rogers yet. Steve, this is David Birnbaum, the journalist we were telling you about – he’s a very ethical member of his profession, we’ve never had a problem working with him.”

The stranger stood up, offering his hand. He was very tall, muscular, and blond, and his smile was sincere, reaching all the way to his very blue eyes. “Mr. Birnbaum, Dr. Richards speaks very highly of you,” Rogers said. He sounded sincere, too. “If you’re willing, I have a statement from the Avengers I’d like to give you regarding the current mess as well.”

David took the offered hand on autopilot, eyes wide. Captain America. Right here in front of him, without a mask or anything. Thank God he’d turned on his recorder before he’d left the elevator, the way he always did when he interviewed people on their own turf. “Captain Rogers, I’m…thank you for your service, Captain, I mean it. It’s an honor to meet you. So the Avengers are…?”

“Scattered all over the place at the moment,” Steve told him, sitting back down. “We hadn’t been in the habit of staying in town together when nothing was going on, but that’s going to change now. And we’ve made a mutual cooperation agreement with the Fantastic Four, because there’s just no sense in all of us living here and not working together – we’re all working toward the same goal, after all.”

“Exactly,” Reed agreed. “We’ll all work with SHIELD as well, if the situation calls for it. I have gained a great deal of respect for their director, he has a very difficult job which he does very well.”

“He’s a good man,” Steve said, then sighed and nodded at David. “Go ahead and ask, I know I just opened myself up for that one.”

David swallowed. “What about Tony Stark, is he a ‘good man’?”

And Captain America nodded without hesitation. “In my opinion, yes. When he wants to be.”


	3. Impact

The news exploded that night, and by dawn the whole world knew that the only person Tony Stark had really screwed over by airing his opinion of his now-former teammates had been himself. SHIELD had released their statement first. They ‘strongly disagreed’ with Iron Man’s assessment of his former teammates as being worthless, heavily implied that they thought he was prejudiced against victims of violent crimes and people with disabilities, and made it plain that their organization was no longer directly associated with him. They also requested that everyone please stop harassing Samuel L. Jackson just because he happened to slightly resemble their director, somehow managing to even more subtly imply that Stark couldn’t tell the two men apart.

Stark Industries, which had in all probability been waiting for their figurehead to reappear in the city before saying anything, was prodded by this into releasing a very brief statement of their own. They reminded everyone that Stark Industries had long been at the forefront of non-discriminatory hiring practices and had a robust diversity and inclusion program which extended throughout their offices internationally. They also pointed out that where Mr. Stark, as a private person, was entitled to hold and even express whatever opinions he liked, he did not speak for Stark Industries and the company honored the efforts made by all of the city’s heroes – super-powered or not – to make their home a safer place.

Captain America’s statement on behalf of the Avengers had hit the wires next, saying that people were entitled to have their own opinions about things, but that he couldn’t in good conscience have a person on his team who didn’t value the skills and experience everyone else brought to the table – or who endangered the safety and well-being of other members of the team just to get a laugh. He had credited Mr. Stark with being a good man and a great innovator who had done a lot for the city and the rest of the world, and he wished him well in his future endeavors. When asked if any of the Avengers wanted to, well, _avenge_ the more wronged members of their team, he had admitted that that he and his teammates were angry about the incident, yes, but that going after people just for ‘blowing a lot of hot air around’ wasn’t in the Avengers’ job description and they had better things to do with their free time.

The Fantastic Four had issued their statement at the same time as the Avengers, but as the ‘senior’ superhero team in the city theirs had been much more strongly worded, basically coming across as a stern reprimand. They condemned Stark’s belittling of his now-former teammates as ‘shocking’ and stated that displaying such an egotistical attitude and not only publicly mocking but also blatantly endangering people who considered him a comrade in arms sent a ‘horrible message’ and was ‘completely unacceptable’ for a man in his position – that position being a superhero and therefore a role model. And Johnny Storm had been quoted as saying, “You just don’t do that to your friends, man. If the guy wanted to work alone, he should have just said so.”

 

The guy in question had felt an unaccustomed pang of dismay when he’d read that, although he’d just as quickly dismissed the feeling. He’d woken up to this crazy shitstorm the morning after the press conference, and he still didn’t understand it. All he’d done was joke around about Iron Man’s capabilities far exceeding everyone else’s, and every word he’d said about his teammates – well, apparently former teammates – had been true, so what was everyone getting so bent out of shape about? Even Pepper wasn’t speaking to him except through Jarvis, and she’d had Jarvis block…well, his access to damned near everything to keep him from making any off-the-cuff statements on social media that might make the problem worse for everyone involved. Jarvis had also informed Tony that he was now sleeping in the room down the hall from the master suite, and that Stark Industries’ board was demanding his presence first thing the following morning to discuss the incident’s impact on the company’s reputation and therefore on its stock prices.

Tony was doing his best to believe it was a coincidence that his pilot had claimed to be feeling sick after they’d stopped for refueling, putting him in the position of either having to wait for another pilot – there hadn’t been any – or to finish flying home himself. He’d chosen the latter, and after several boring hours of flying which had given him way too much time to mentally gnaw on the frustrating problem of something that he didn’t think should have been all that much of a problem in the first place, he was finally almost home. He brought the little plane in for a slightly rough landing on the private airstrip, seeing his car waiting in its accustomed place although no one seemed to be around. “Professionalism is dead,” he complained to nobody – Jarvis wasn’t connected to the plane, it being a smaller generic corporate jet rather than one of Tony’s more tricked-out private ones. “Just completely dead.”

After shutting everything down, he dragged his suitcase out of the plane and stowed it in the car’s trunk…but when he went back for his carry-on the sound of a throat clearing made him spin around before his foot touched the step. He’d sort of expected Fury, because sneaking up on people was, as near as Tony could tell, the only fun Fury ever had, but this man was definitely not Nick Fury. For one thing, he was white and had two eyes. He was also dressed somewhere between homeless guy and dockworker on the scale of scruffiness, and his longish dark hair looked oily. Tony decided to try to play it cool, since he didn’t see a weapon. “Yes? You need something?”

The man snorted. “Many, many things,” he said, in a distinct Russian accent. “Today, however, I will be satisfied with killing you.”

Tony made a face at him. “Well, you get right to the point, don’t you? I haven’t pissed off Russia that I know of, though, so you’re going to have to be more specific – you know, as in telling me your entire plan and spelling out all of your grievances in detail?”

The man actually smiled. “I no longer work for…Russia, so I have no idea if they hate you or not. I hate you, and I am here. Is that not enough?”

Tony had his foot on the step. “Not really, no, since I have no idea who you are. Doesn’t that take all the meaning out of it, if I have no idea why you’re going to kill me?”

This time the man laughed, and then he threw something in a blindingly fast arc which ricocheted off the stair rail and made Tony jump to one side, away from the stairs. The man caught the thing like a boomerang in one gloved hand, holding it up so Tony could get a look at it before tucking it away again so that it couldn’t be seen at all. “Good reflexes,” he approved, heavily sarcastic and still chuckling, and then a gun appeared in his hand with the same speed his shuriken-boomerang had. “I should chase you across the field to see how fast you can run before I kill you. That would be fun, yes?”

Okay, so the guy was a wannabe comedian homicidal Russian ninja who hated him…oh, and he was armed with such a fucking huge gun that he probably couldn’t miss unless he fired in the completely opposite direction. Tony was becoming fairly sure he was about to get blown straight to hell. No help was in sight, and there was no way he had time to summon his suit…

And then there was a round blur flashing through the air and a bulky figure in a dark blue uniform jumped between him and the ninja. “No, I can’t let you do it. Just turn around and walk away.”

The ninja cocked his head and tossed the thrown shield back; it was almost like the two of them were playing Frisbee. “This spoiled bastard doesn’t deserve your protection. And do you think I won’t shoot through you to get him? Because you know I can.”

“I don’t try to predict what you’ll do,” was Steve’s response. “But I can’t let you shoot at him, they’d declare open season on you in a heartbeat and then they’d order _me_ to chase you down. And I don’t want us back in that position ever again if I can help it, okay?”

The ninja nodded, and fired. Steve jerked back a step, hunching over just slightly but not going down, and Tony felt all of the blood drain out of his face. “No, really,” Steve said, just sounding a little winded. “I can’t let you shoot at him – and you need to get the hell out of here unless you’re suddenly lightning-proof, because Thor just got back to Earth and Jane called me in a panic to say he’s on his way here and he’s seriously pissed off.” That got him a questioning look. “His brother died, in his arms. This idiot,” he jerked his thumb over his shoulder, “jumped into that with both feet via his mouth.”

To Tony’s surprise, the ninja took a step back, gun disappearing. “There will be consequences?”

“Of course there are, you think I’d let something like that slide? He was off the team the minute I found out what he’d said, everyone else on the team wants to kick his ass, and SHIELD’s director is pissed off at him too. And his girlfriend has probably cut him off over this already, she doesn’t have a whole lot of tolerance for stupid shit from what I’ve heard.”

Tony winced; that was really, really true, she didn’t. But he was still more than a little resentful that he seemed to have been cast as the bad guy in the situation by everyone involved and apparently also by people who weren’t. He hadn’t done anything wrong! Or at least, nothing wrong enough for all of this shit. “Some people just don’t appreciate my sense of humor…”

Steve not only didn’t acknowledge that Tony had said anything, he just kept talking to the Russian ninja. “I showed up to protect you and Thor, Bucky, not him – he’s not my problem anymore, but he’d for damn sure make problems for the two of you if we gave him the chance. Now get the hell out of here! There’s an angry thunder god headed this way with murder on his mind, and you have a freaking metal arm.”

And Bucky the Ninja disappeared, just like that. Tony closed his dropped-open mouth with an effort. “Wonderful, Bucky Barnes is alive and he’s a freaking ninja,” he muttered. “An _immortal_ freaking _Russian_ ninja, no less. I think you guys have been leaving me out of the loop on some pretty important things I should have been made aware of, here…”

Steve just kept right on ignoring him, blue eyes instead fixed on the bluer, darkening sky overhead, and when the supersoldier spotted what he was looking for he moved to a different spot, cupped both hands around his mouth and yelled at the massing clouds, “DON’T YOU DARE!”

And lightning shot off into the ground a little distance away instead of blowing up Tony’s plane and Tony along with it. The billionaire flinched, Steve didn’t. And when Thor landed in a full-on god-mode rage, literally crackling with power, Steve walked right up to him and stood in front of him, folding his arms. “No, you can’t kill him. And I’m getting real tired of having to tell people that, so please don’t make me repeat it again.”

“THIS MAN INSULTED…”

“Everyone,” Steve told him. “He insulted everyone and put two members of our team in danger. And I know you want to kill him, I realize that on Asgard you’d probably have every right to kill him…but he’s defenseless right now so that would be cold-blooded murder and that would dishonor you.”

“He didn’t look very dishonored when he tried it the first time we met,” Tony muttered, and Thor roared and raised his hammer…and then dropped it very suddenly as though he just couldn’t hold it up anymore, his armor and Asgardian clothing disappearing at the same time and leaving him in jeans and a flannel shirt. Steve sighed. “Curse kicked in?” Thor nodded, shamefaced. “No, buddy, it’s okay,” the other man reassured him, patting his arm. “This would be enough to do it to anyone. Why don’t you come with me, we can show you the new clubhouse and you can meet Sam, his codename is Falcon and I think you’re gonna like him. We’ll have cocoa and things, you’ll feel better.”

Thor looked torn. “But I should not leave…”

“Oh.” Steve considered the hammer, and then took a brief self-inventory. “No problem, unless it’s a lot heavier than it looks, I can carry it for you.” And with that he bent over – painfully, it was obvious – and grasped Mjolnir’s handle.

And picked it up. He weighed it in his hand. “Hmm, not even as heavy as I thought it would be – it _looks_ like stone, but I guess it’s not, huh?”

Thor’s eyes had widened. “No,” he said in a quiet, respectful voice. “No, it is not stone. It is just shaped to resemble carved stone – the aesthetics of our ancestors mean a great deal to my people.”

“It’s a beautiful piece of work,” Steve told him with a crooked smile. He took the thunder god’s arm, and Thor – abruptly realizing that there was a spreading stain on his friend’s suit and what it must mean – shifted to instead wrap a supportive arm around the supersoldier’s waist. Steve patted his arm again in thanks, leaning on him a little more heavily. “C’mon, buddy, let’s go. There’s nothing here for us.”

Thor threw Tony a look that was pretty self-explanatory. “No, there is nothing here,” he said, and then the two of them started walking.

Tony watched them, speechless, until they were out of sight. And then a voice from behind him made him jump. Bucky the Ninja was back. Leaning on his plane in a stance that could only be described as ‘cocky’, no less. “Why are you surprised? He is the good others only pretend to be – not perfect, and he knows he is not, but he is _good_. Better than most, even.” Bucky scowled. “Attack him again, and you will never see me coming. I will kill you between one breath and the next…and I will make it look like your woman did it.”

And then he was gone again, and Tony was shaking in his shoes and seriously, _seriously_ considering pissing his pants. He got back into his plane and out of habit called Pepper to tell her he needed a ride back to the Tower. He got her voicemail, so he called the Tower’s main desk instead and requested a driver from the secretary who answered…and who told him it would be about half an hour. He sighed, shakily making his way back into the plush cabin and settling into a chair, picking up his tablet. An errant touch from his thumb made it jump to the next page of the article he’d been skimming, and he was about to switch to something else when a particular phrase caught his eye and the bottom dropped out of his stomach. No, that…that didn’t have anything to do with the current mess, it hadn’t even been his idea! Why would they be talking about that?

 

> _From the Editor: The job of a reporter is to report the facts, to ask questions and dig for details, not to make statements of their own. In this case, however, I felt it was only appropriate to include this unofficial statement I received from David Birnbaum in my office when I was questioning him about his meeting with the Fantastic Four and Captain America. In his own words:_
> 
> “I felt I had to bring it up, because it might have bearing on the larger story, and since Captain Rogers struck me as a man who doesn’t appreciate people beating around the bush I just flat-out asked him what his thoughts had been when he’d seen the Iron Patriot suit and if he’d had any words with Stark about it – and if that was why he’d changed the look of his uniform. His reaction took me completely by surprise. I’d expected anger, or failing that irritation, or maybe even a statement he’d prepared beforehand just in case someone ever asked him…but I didn’t expect him to flinch, literally flinch like the words had physically hit him. For just an instant I saw the hurt, the betrayal he’d felt…and then he regained his composure and answered me. And his answer was that he hadn’t known about it until long after the fact, because he’d been on a mission – the one that culminated in that huge aerial mess over the harbor that nobody wants to explain – and after that he’d been in the hospital and his friends had kept the story from him. Not because it was ‘his’ uniform, or at least a close facsimile, since he’d already switched to the dark blue and silver version he currently wears before that mission started, but because it brought home the fact that Stark truly didn’t understand what the uniform stood for, what it symbolized to people, and why that was and still is important – no matter who was wearing it. To Stark it was just a silly costume, useful for getting attention and not much else. What the captain didn’t say, but I saw it in his eyes, was that coming to that realization just about broke his heart. Tony Stark's father Howard, after all, had been one of the captain’s closest friends.
> 
> I apologized to the captain for asking that question, and I meant it – I wish I hadn’t asked him, because when I asked it I didn’t understand either. And now I do, and honestly my objectivity about this incident has been shot to hell because of it. Because now I understand that Tony Stark didn’t just put his foot in his mouth in an unthinking moment in front of the press. He wasn’t just making fun of his friends and went a little too far. And he wasn’t just embodying the cynicism and irreverence for which he is so well-known and which so many, many people in our society subscribe to themselves. No, what he was doing was much, much worse, because this show of casual contempt wasn’t his first, probably won’t be his last, and betrays a truly horrifying attitude coming from a man many people look to as a role model – just like the Fantastic Four have stated. Tony Stark publicly decried the idea that everyone has a contribution to make, that all of our efforts are valuable – that anyone can be a hero – and instead claimed that privilege for only the elitist of the elite. And he spat on the sacrifices of both the living and the dead, going so far as to ridicule people who had fought beside him simply to get attention, to score points. Those things, in my opinion anyway, are unforgivable.
> 
> Captain Rogers says he thinks Tony Stark is a good man, and I believe he means it. But I can’t agree with him. Because I’ve known good men – my father and grandfather chief among them, the men and women I’ve worked with as a war correspondent running a close second – and Tony Stark has proved, to me anyway, that he is a very long way from meeting that standard.”

Tony turned off the tablet and stared out the window at the lights of the city, trying not to wonder how many of those people living under those lights – people who were alive because he’d saved them from their own government’s bad judgment – were agreeing with Birnbaum and not with Captain America right at that moment. And also trying not to wonder if he himself did as well.

 

Nick Fury was shutting down his computer, ready to go home after two very long days. SHIELD's statement to the press had been very well received, and he thought it had made their point – it had in fact made a few points he hadn’t really intended for it to, because his PR people had very obviously taken a side when it came to the situation. He couldn’t really blame them, Stark had caused a lot of headaches for them over the last few years. On a whim he’d sent a message to Pepper Potts via Jarvis: It had simply said, _I’m sorry_.

Surprisingly, she’d responded almost at once. _I am too_.

That message had made up his mind about something else. One of his team leaders had been driving him absolutely crazy about the Stark situation, mostly through Hill, and Fury had been unsure what exactly to do about it…but now, he knew. The playing field had changed, and if he was going to keep things on an even keel between SHIELD and the Avengers, he had another apology he needed to make pronto. He pulled out his phone and texted a brief message to Captain Rogers: _Bringing in a SHIELD team the Avengers and F4 can work with directly. Meet in CP in front of the bears at noon two days from now. And in advance: I’m sorry_. Then he speed-dialed a number he didn’t usually call anymore. “Alright, fine,” he said without preamble when his agent picked up. “Get your team together and get your ass back home, Coulson. You have an appointment to keep two days from now, and you do _not_ want to be late.”

 

Back in the Avengers’ ‘clubhouse’ far under the busy streets and bright lights of the city, Steve was sleeping off his healing bullet wound under Bruce’s watchful eye while Thor tried to make sense of the situation he’d blundered into in his desire to kill Tony Stark. “He could have ducked. He could have pushed Tony Stark aside, or used his shield to deflect the bullet. He is fast enough for that, I have seen it.”

Bruce just shook his head. “You’re not getting it. Tony’s been trying to self-justify what he told the press, because it went too far too fast and now he can’t take it back, he has to live with it. So he’s been telling himself he was just telling the truth, he’s been building up this illusion of how unfair to him everyone is being…and then Bucky showed up, and Steve showed up to stop you and Bucky – not to protect Tony, which is what Tony probably thought was going on at first. Bucky shot Steve to prove him wrong…and Steve stayed where he was and didn’t duck or raise his shield for the same reason, because in order to protect Bucky he had to not let there be any proof that Bucky had taken a shot at Tony – the same way he couldn’t let you fry Tony's plane. He was there to protect you and Bucky by making sure Tony couldn’t say you’d tried to kill him, and that’s exactly what he did. He wasn’t there for Tony, it wasn’t about Tony for him…and Tony knows that now. Tony had to go home knowing that, and believe me, a bullet or a beating couldn’t have done as much damage to him as Steve did earlier just by ignoring him and focusing on the two of you instead.”

Thor frowned. “But…” And then he shook his head, and a small smile lifted the corners of his mouth. “Yes, I see now. At first I was unsure, but the man called Fury knew what he was doing when he chose Steve Rogers to be our leader.”

Bruce had to smile too. “Yeah, I think he did. And I think he’ll leave us alone now for the same reason, unless he needs our help with something or Steve calls him for backup if we get in over our heads. We’ve got some other allies in town now, too, you’ll probably get to meet them later this week.” He looked around the room, which he really hadn’t been happy to be using less than a day after they’d designated it as the infirmary. “Once Steve is up and around tomorrow we can get busy setting up shop here for real. There’s a room a ways down on the other side of the big space that I think I’ll make into my lab, it was some kind of workroom for the engineers who built this place so it’s pretty much set up for me already. In the meantime I’d say wander around a bit with Natasha and Clint once they get back, pick a room for yourself, help decide what we’re going to need. Just stay out of the room with the Private sign on the door, that one is…taken, or at least Steve hopes it will be soon.” He turned back around. “And I won’t tell him what picking up your hammer means if you don’t. It wouldn’t make sense to him anyway, he already knows who he is and he doesn’t think that guy is anything special.”

Thor snorted. “He thinks wrongly, but I will not correct him – now, anyway. If circumstances require it in the future, I will reconsider.” He clapped Bruce on the shoulder. “I can obtain some equipment for our use from Asgard, but would my Jane know what Earth-science supplies you require? My abrupt departure must have alarmed her, I should call and let her know all is now well. I can request scientific supplies at the same time, she and Lady Darcy have often mentioned that much surplus ‘sits and rots’ because it was purchased in mass quantities and they have no use for it.”

“If she’s got it laying around and nobody will miss it? Sure,” Bruce told him. “And yes, she’d know what I need. Thanks, Thor – and thank her for me, too.”

Thor bowed. “I shall do that with pleasure,” he said, and then strode out of the room, cape billowing behind him even though he wasn’t currently wearing one. Bruce shook his head. They were going to have to work with the guy on looking less…well, godly when they weren’t out doing the superhero thing. Because even without the hammer – which was currently parked in their living room where Steve had dropped it earlier – Thor still looked like he’d just stepped off the cover of a cheap romance novel…

Which gave Bruce a really bad idea that made him smile. “If I can’t go back to doing science for a living,” he told Steve conversationally, even though the supersoldier was dead to the world and couldn’t hear him, “I could totally start renting the rest of you guys out as artist’s models. It’s all about capturing the nuances of the human form, right? And I have it on good authority that there’s nothing dirty about it…"


	4. Epilogue

The Avengers had been an independent entity for three months, and things were going pretty well for all concerned. The city had faced one attacker during that time, but when said attacker had realized he was being faced down by the Avengers _and_ the Fantastic Four, he’d given up almost immediately and there’d been very little collateral damage as a result. In consequence, the press was loving them all and so was the city government. Stark Industries was still headquartered in Manhattan, but Tony Stark had moved to Malibu and taken his Iron Man suit with him. He was busy inventing and innovating there, and doing the superhero thing when something came up on the West Coast that needed it. Pepper Potts spent the weekends with him there, and they were still a couple, but the board of directors had taken steps to make sure everyone knew that her voice was the only one speaking for the company.

The Air Force had put the Iron Patriot on permanent assignment in Washington, DC, at the suggestion of both Sam Wilson and Colonel Rhodes. And a press op held in the National Mall with both the Patriot and Captain America in attendance – and both obviously getting along just fine – had gone a long way toward settling any lingering doubts about whether or not the Patriot should keep its all-American paint job. Although Rhodes had privately told Sam that he was going to get Steve back for having them play the Star-Spangled Man song at the event, and for insisting on showing him the choreography that went with it. Sam had made a point of passing that along to Nick Fury, who had immediately gotten in touch with Rhodes to warn him that starting a prank war with Captain America might not be the best idea he’d ever had.

All things considered, Fury was pleased with the way things had worked out. The Avengers Initiative had worked out the way he’d always hoped it could. Bruce Banner had stopped being a fugitive and gone back to being a scientist; the Army had been ‘persuaded’ to let their standing order for capturing him drop. Thor lived with the Avengers and visited his girlfriend Jane whenever her work would allow, apparently having decided to spend the majority of his time on Earth rather than on Asgard. Sam Wilson, conversely, had not moved in with the Avengers but kept in close contact all the same. Natasha Romanov was still nominally working for SHIELD, but Clint Barton had quit immediately on finding out his former handler – whose death a lot of people within SHIELD had erroneously blamed him for – had been alive the entire time. Barton was a full-time Avenger now, acting as Steve’s intelligence and communications person, and all anyone knew about his part-time job was that he had one and it was something Bruce had suggested.

And as for Steve Rogers…he was happy. His team was where he could watch out for them, and they were all doing well. They had allies. They had friends. And by the end of their first month on their own, the room marked Private had become occupied by a shadow that came and went when no one was around to observe it and left few traces of its existence. A note on the whiteboard or the corkboard here, a repaired weapon there, evidence that laundry had been done or tools had been used. Everyone had just ignored it until one night Steve, who had been cooking dinner, had decided enough was enough. “If you want dinner, get your ass out here!” he’d called out. “This table isn’t going to set itself, you know!”

And to everyone’s surprise, the Private door had opened and a long-haired man with a scowl on his face had stalked out. “Do I look like a woman to you?”

“Do you really want to make a comment like that where Natasha can hear you?”

“I wouldn’t,” had come from Clint, who’d been lounging on the couch. He’d waved when Bucky had scowled at him. “Don’t look at me, I’m on dish duty tonight.”

“And I cooked, Bruce is in the middle of something, and Thor’s not here,” Steve had added.

Bucky had grumbled something under his breath, but he’d still stalked over and started rooting out silverware. “So what is Natasha doing?”

“Supervising you men,” the woman herself had said, coming out of the shadowy tiled corridor that led to her room and giving him a very arch look. “You know, women’s work.”

He’d actually dropped a fork, which had made Clint grin and Steve chuckle. And Bucky had stopped scowling and grinned instead. “Alright, yeah, I’m not arguing with that.”

And after that, he’d eaten dinner with them every night and even taken his turn doing the dishes.


End file.
